Flashback to 1979 or so. It was a warm, sunny day when I first visited the gravel pit with my fourth grade class from King Elementary. I found a brachiopod fossil. The sides of the pit were still bare, the sky was blue, and the sunlight was warm. I've always wondered where the place was so I could go back and visit it again. Fast forward to 2008. The Ann Arbor News reports that the Fox Science Preserve is purchased by the Washtenaw County Parks with assistance from the City of Ann Arbor's Greenbelt Program and the Scio Township Land Preservation Commission. The preserve is the site of a former gravel pit on which the previous owners, Mel and Betty Fox, have permitted Ann Arbor Public School students to learn about Michigan geology for over 35 years. There it is. The gravel pit from fourth grade. Now to visit it.

Skip to last week. On a foggy, chilly day, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009, I accompanied my son, Alex, and his second grade class on their annual Ann Arbor Public Schools Environmental Education Field Trip to the place where I became a rock hound 30 years ago - Fox Science Preserve. This time, armed with a digital camera, I endeavored to record this experience with the knowledgeable eye of a naturalist. We were led by the Ann Arbor Public Schools environmental educator, Dave Szczygiel (pronounced, “seagull”). My how the place has changed.

No longer do buses have to park alongside the road. There is a small parking area at the entrance. But bathrooms are non-existent. The pit is wider than I recall, being located on a 49-acre site. The sides are not as steep as they were in my memory and are now covered with vegetation, as is the floor of the pit. The sand was darker, due to the rain. I'll have to come back when it's dry. I don't remember seeing so many boulders scattered about as there are today. Either the physical erosion of the site or erosion of my mind has occurred.

Forty years ago, when the gravel pit was abandoned, glacially deposited sand, gravel, and rocks of all sizes were exposed. The ground was naked, not unlike our landscape roughly 10,000 years ago when continental glaciers retreated. Over many years, vegetation slowly took root in the exposed sand, beginning with algae, moss, fungi, and lichen precursors. In some places, it's like walking on a layer of greenish brown mucus. Try not to slip and fall.

The students had fun collecting rocks, using a metal detector to discover and a folding shovel to uncover an old fuel can buried under several inches of sand/gravel, collecting meteorites with a magnet in a bottle, and learning without realizing it. We even got to meet a 2 billion year old boulder from Canada - a sample of Gowgandan Tillite (sounds like "cow cannon"). I look forward to his next field trip. I wonder what memories that will invoke.

Stefan Szumko has a master's degree in curriculum and technology, but still gets frustrated by computers. Stefan can be reached at slugwhisperer@gmail.com.